Monday, February 27, 2017

February 27, 2017 (EURONEWS) A march to commemorate the second
anniversary of the killing of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov has taken
place in Moscow. The organisers said 15,000 people took part; the police
put the figure at 5,000. A smaller rally was held in St Petersburg. At the
march which gathered political parties and opposition movements, one banner
read “Boris Nemtsov is a hero of Russia”, while there were chants of “Russia
without Putin”, “Russia will be free” and “Hands off Ukraine”.

Five Chechens have denied charges
of murdering the 55-year-old, who was a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin and one
of the president’s principal opponents. But Nemtsov’s supporters say the
investigation – which the president said he backed – has failed to uncover who
ordered the killing. “Boris Nemtsov was (the symbol of) a ‘free-thinking
Russia’ for us; democratic values which we all aim for, such as free elections
and no corruption,” said one of the marchers, Moscow resident Ekaterina
Getgarts.

“Unfortunately, the name of Boris
Nemtsov for Russia as a whole, as opposed to big cities like Moscow or St.
Petersburg, does not mean anything yet. Unfortunately. But he represents
another missed opportunity for Russia to get on the path towards being a normal
country,” said another supporter, Boris Schur. The marchers had not been
authorised access to the spot where, on 25 February 2015, Nemtsov was gunned
down on a bridge near the Kremlin as he walked home from a restaurant with his
girlfriend, but many later laid flowers there.

The march, largely peaceful, was
nonetheless marked by an assault on ex-prime minister and government opponent
Mikhail Kasyanov who had green ink thrown in his face. Nemtsov – a former
deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin’s presidency – had been working on a
report on Russian involvement in Ukraine and had accused Putin of launching an
illegal war. The victim’s supporters believe the pro-Moscow leader of Russia’s
Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, was behind the murder. But he denies it and
in December Russian investigators refused to call him as a witness.